Chapter 948: The Imperial Court’s Back-up Plan
This wave of sudden arrows caught the White Lotus bandits off guard, and coupled with Sun Shaozong's charge at the head of the troops, the battle came to an end almost in an instant.
By the time Feng Xin and Zhang Cong got out of their cars respectively, the dozen or so Jurchens following Sun Shaozong had already started cleaning up the battlefield.
"grown ups!"
Feng Xin reported with a cheerful look, "This bandit leader is nicknamed Zhang Xiucai, and he seems to have quite a status in the White Lotus Sect! He was just on the road..."
"How did you know we were going to take him out of town?"
Without waiting for Feng Xin to finish his words, Zhang Xiucai stared at Sun Shaozong and asked, "Even Feng Xin didn't know our plan from the beginning to the end!"
Now he naturally understood that Feng Xin was just playing along with the enemy's tactics.
Especially after leaving the city, Feng Xin held up the curtain and seemed to be in a daze, but in fact he was observing the sides of the road to see if there were any secret signs, so as to wait for an opportunity to lure the White Lotus rebels into an ambush.
However, only a few people knew about the plan to use Feng Xin as an opportunity to stir up disputes between the two countries, even within the White Lotus Sect.
Feng Xin himself just found out about it on the way.
Then why did Sun Shaozong lie in ambush outside the city so early?
Is there a spy around him, or... does this legendary three-eyed diviner really have the ability to predict the future?
"It's just a simple inference."
Sun Shaozong leaned on Frostmourne and said nonchalantly, "You risked being discovered and asked Feng Xin to go outside. There are only two options. One is to give him a mission and let him return to the embassy."
"The other option is to take him away and make trouble for him. As for the latter option, there are three possibilities: hide him in the city; kill him and put the blame on the Jurchens; take him out of the city and deal with him in another way."
"Considering that once Feng Xin disappears, the Jurchens will definitely trace the case back to the White Lotus Sect in order to clear their suspicion, and I am also quite famous for investigating cases, the probability of the first two possibilities is extremely low."
"That is to say, after Feng Xin went out to keep the appointment, the most likely thing that would happen is, first, he would return to the post station with a mission, second, he would be taken out of the city by you."
At this point, Sun Shaozong spread his hands and said, "After confirming these two points, it should be a natural thing to set up an ambush on the road outside the city, right?"
Zhang Cong was silent.
Indeed, after Sun Shaozong's analysis, it seemed .
So...
The biggest problem indeed lies with Feng Xin!
Zhang Cong subconsciously turned his gaze to Feng Xin and sighed, "I thought Master Feng Xiang would be more cautious for the sake of his family's lives, but I didn't expect that he would still be exposed."
Feng Xin was stunned for a long while before he understood what he meant. He obviously didn't believe that he would risk his life and voluntarily expose his connection with the White Lotus Sect, but believed that he had accidentally revealed a flaw.
Feng Xin's old face immediately turned red, and he rushed forward and slapped Zhang Cong twice, causing the corners of his mouth to burst and bleed. Then he yelled, "You damned fat man, you still dare to accuse me after all this! I am a member of the imperial court in life and a ghost of the imperial court in death! You guys, a bunch of clowns, want to force me to become a traitor?! Bah!"
He spat with a look of righteousness on his face, but the more passionate he was, the more it seemed like what he was saying hit the nail on the head.
In fact, a few days ago, although he was extremely conflicted, he never thought of telling Xu Furen and Sun Shaozong about this.
However, when Sun Shaozong came to him that day and reminded him to be careful of the infiltration of the White Lotus Sect, Feng Xin couldn't help but show some strangeness because he had something to hide.
If it were someone else, they might not be able to see the flaw.
But how good is Sun Shaozong's vision?
Moreover, he was most familiar with Feng Xin [except for his wives and concubines, Feng Xin could be said to be the person he had spent the longest time with since he traveled through time], so he first asked him a few indirect questions and then went straight to the point.
Feng Xin was already in awe of him, so after this question, he naturally could not hold back any longer and confessed everything.
Let’s get back to the story.
However, after successfully capturing Zhang Cong and others, Sun Shaozong did not lead his team back to Jianzhou City. Instead, he sent the Jurchens back to the city to report the news while interrogating several White Lotus rebels on the spot.
By the evening, several guards of the diplomatic envoys sneaked out of the city and, together with Feng Xin, took the two White Lotus bandits who had handed in their "letters of surrender" to Xingcheng.
After they arrive in Xingcheng, the eldest brother will follow Sun Shaozong's instructions in the letter, pretend to start a war, and take the troops out of the city for training.
The two surrendered White Lotus bandits would follow Zhang Cong's original plan and contact the followers in Xingcheng, falsely claiming that Feng Xin had completely surrendered to the White Lotus and that his family in the capital must be protected and moved to the northwest in time.
If all goes well, the imperial court can follow this line and wipe out the White Lotus forces in the capital and outside the Great Wall.
Sun Shaozong escorted Zhang Cong back to the city, and continued to interrogate him about the inside story of the White Lotus Sect. At the same time, he used the excuse that the White Lotus Sect was trying to sow discord between the two sides and tried to force the Later Jin to hand over Deputy Leader Xue and others.
In fact, he had already learned about the White Lotus Sect's whereabouts in the city from the mouths of those White Lotus rebels who surrendered. This action was just to force the Later Jin Dynasty to break up with the White Lotus Sect completely.
Originally, according to Sun Shaozong and Xu Furen's inference, the Jurchens would most likely choose to sacrifice their chariot to save their king in order to gain a strategic breathing period.
Although the Jurchens would not take the initiative to betray the White Lotus, since the White Lotus had been caught and had indeed tried to sabotage the peace talks between the two sides, it was no wonder that they would be ruthless.
The initial development was indeed similar to what the two had speculated.
Although for more than ten days, the Jurchens had been making excuses, saying that they had never had any contact with the White Lotus Sect, and even denied that there were any White Lotus leaders in the city.
But privately, Sun Shaozong learned from his neighbor Qi Tu that Deputy Leader Xue and others had been detained, waiting to be used as bargaining chips to be exchanged with the Great Zhou at the right time.
To this end, Xu Furen and Sun Shaozong made some special calculations to see if there were any benefits that they could promise to the Jurchens without any cost.
Who would have thought that on the fourth day of February, the Jurchens' attitude suddenly changed. First, their tone became inexplicably tough, and then they even refused to summon Xu Furen into the inner city for discussions for several days.
Even Qi Tu, a neighbor who had always been close to Sun Shaozong, had been out of touch for more than ten days.
Could it be that something went wrong with Feng Xin again?
The troops of Xingcheng made a fake one into reality and actually attacked the Jurchen tribe?
But this shouldn't be the case?!
For safety reasons, the officers and soldiers who were accompanying him had already received instructions from Sun Shaozong and would not obey Feng Xin's orders, and would even be wary of him.
Therefore, even if Feng Xin was faced with the problem and had second thoughts, it would be impossible for him to do such a thing to deceive the world.
So where exactly did the change occur?
Sun Shaozong and Xu Furen tried all kinds of speculations in the posthouse, but to no avail. Forced by the situation, they even prepared for the worst: if things didn't go as planned, they would fight their way out of Jianzhou City.
Fortunately, on February 13, the Jurchens finally revealed the answer to the mystery: the main force of the Great Zhou's Southeast Fleet had just destroyed the pirates' nest in Kyushu, Japan a month ago.
From the bandit leaders Su Cheng, Chen Erhu, Maeda Boguang and others, nearly a thousand were killed on the spot, more than two thousand were captured, and countless others fled in all directions.
On the 23rd day of the first lunar month, the Southeast Fleet, with the power of a great victory, entered the Inju seaport of Korea, and killed most of the captured pirates. They also cut off their heads and built a memorial for them, causing the whole of Korea to be in a state of panic.
A few days later, with the coordination of the pro-China Leading Party, a purge operation across the North Korean officialdom was officially launched.
At the same time, the Southeast Fleet allocated some troops and small ships, and took over the defense command of the Yalu River from North Korea.
The fourth day of February.
When the news reached Jianzhou City, the rulers and ministers of the Later Jin Dynasty were all silent for a moment.
